I HOLD THIS TRUTH TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT A DEBT CRISIS CANNOT BE RESOLVED WITH MORE DEBT

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Excuse Me, But...

The stiff upper lip evident in the willingness to let Lehman fail lasted exactly 24 hours. Yesterday the Bush administration panicked (yet again) and agreed to "rescue" AIG by providing it with a $85 billion Fed loan. As a result, the US taxpayer is now the majority owner of the insurance company - further adding to his/her portfolio of problematic (to put it very mildly) FIRE industry assets.

I won't go into the legality or other bureaucratic issues surrounding such bailouts/nationalizations (yet another falling knife caught at enormous cost...), but I do have a very simple question:

46 comments:

Palm Beach Socialist
said...

i can haz Glass-Steagall back now?

no!?!?!

stoopid fat catz.

"Excuse me, but who's going to ultimately salvage the salvager?"

Religious insanity remains quite common in the US. I'm sure CEO Jesus will seize this opportunity. Just ask President Palin (say that out loud a few times) and she'll tell you all about the Rapture that she believes could happen at any moment now. It's the ultimate salvage operation. Yup, yup.

What's going to happen in the future? Of course predictions are difficult to make...especially about the future.Two main developments I see straight ahead.1. The US government is going to be in a serious credit crunch after the on going series of bailouts. It will be increasingly difficult for them to finance the deficit at reasonable rates (loss of confidence). Printing press to the rescue. Fiscal responsibility is obviously not an option our masters are willing to consider.2. Foreigners are losing confidence in the US economy and the dollar. The dollar will loose its status as world reserve currency and trillions of dollars will be flooding back home over the next decade.The trade deficit will skrink drastically because foreigners/suckers will be less willing to accept dollars as payment. That means less salad shooters at Wal*Mart and less and/or much more expensive gas at your local station.The consequences? Prices will rise for just about anything we import while wages for those that are still employed will remain stagnant.The result? A serious reduction in our standard of living for generations to come.No more SUVs, $5 Lattes or exotic vacations. No more buy now pay later 'cos you won't find a sucker willing to lend you money. In short,rising prices + stagnant wages = lower standard of living.

I think that the military budget will be the deciding factor WRT inflation vs deflation. As long as the US isn't willing to scale back its global footprint to reduce the deficit then the only source of sufficient funds to bankroll the Pentagon will be the printing press to confiscate the retirement savings of the class formerly known as middle.

Paul Craig Roberts' latest post over at CounterPunch suggests that pension assets will probably be targeted. Less slowly and more surely the country's wealth is being siphoned off to feed the neo-cons' Mein Kampf.

Retirement looks pretty grim in a decade or two.It will pretty much consist of food stamps and free admission to the local homeless shelter. Medicare/Medicaid? Take an Asprin and don't call me in the morning. They might also confiscate/tax 401K/IRA accounts out of existence. I am seriously wondering if I should continue to make contributions over the minimum to get the maximum employer match. I have the feeling that when the time comes I won't be the beneficiary of my own savings.

Here's a quote from that article that seems to fit with Thai's fractal analysis:

"Living in the short run, most people do not see the financial war going on, and imagine that finance and industry, labor and capital are fighting for the same kind of economic growth and wealth. The reality is a conflict between financial and industrial growth objectives, subject to the adage that the solution to every problem tends to create yet new, unforeseen problems – ones often are larger in scale, requiring yet new solutions that cause yet larger and even more unforeseen. This is how societies transform themselves for better or for worse, crisis by crisis."

In order to ease some well deserved pain in the short run we sacrifice our future. We need education, a solution to our energy dilemma, research, infrastructure and manufacturing. Instead we use our funds to bail out failing financial firms and speculators. Let AIG, the GSEs and others fail. So what? It's capitalism, it's part of the game. That's how capitalism works. Occasionally you have a crises and weak players bite the dust. This will make room for more efficiently managed companies to grow and fill the void. That's how the system stays healthy over the long run.Are there any examples where massiv government bailouts produced good results in the long term? I really can't think of any. Anybody?

Yoski, I Hell the opposite side of this same question the other day when I asked him whether he thought company payroll deposits would be safe if we let these institutions go under-- He didnt answer.

Maybe you'll have more luck.

Remember, Bernanke seems to think it was MORE the collapse of the banks (with the accompanying loss of personal savings) that caused so much personal hardship during the Great Depression that it was the actual credit crunch itself. Some were effected by this WAY more than others.

At some level Bernanke seems to be saying the 'letting them all fail' approach is a kind of societal moral hazard he simply finds immoral (and the more I think on it, the more I sometimes agree with him)... either we all cooperate and solve this, or we all go down together.

Let's punish the bad guys (pierece the corporate veil, whatever is necessary...), but let's not split society apart over it, like the Great Depression almost did.

No Okie,I read that article and while it's very informative it was a bit over long, by the time I finished it I had trouble remembering the earlier points and had to go back and re-read it. The article on the govt targeting pensions is as follows:

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09162008.html

Okie, I know you're Jewish and I'd like your take on the Halper article. Although the tactics involved could apply to any persecuted group, I would like to know how you view the specific situation Jeff Halper focuses on and whether it might (I think it does) contribute to the growing animosity toward zionism on the web. I wonder if you have the will to read Israel Shahak's book on the Talmud [Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years]; it's uncomfortable and I can't get any Jew I know to look at it. They obviously know what it's about or they wouldn't shy from it so strenuously.

Shahak is no David Dukes, he was brought to Israel as a 12 year old orphan after WW2 and spent the rest of his life there and motives aside every assertion he makes is sourced (~95p of text and ~30p of reference notes). I think humanistic Jews (as you appear to me) have to confront this issue and refute it or you surrender it to the haters on both sides of the Jew/Gentile divide. With a probable financial collapse on the way, it may not be that far off before accusations of international financiers are made by non-Jews who have read that book.

manufacturing credit via a complex web of structured financial products supported by gov't policies regarding regulation and exporting jobs and therefore wage's has come crashing down as the collateral for this giant ponzi event, the American consumer, has said "no mas".The FED and Treasury are telling us that their really was never any chance that the complicated CDS would be effective in a crisis, it simply existed to create the illusion of capital.

Thai,I agree that medical care will need to be triaged but there are more than one way to do that. Many prescription drugs are copy cats of other drugs and provide no additional benefit and sometimes are more harmful but require the waste of hundreds of millions to develop and test. Research budgets should be reserved for breakthrough targets, not used to duplicate existing effective treatments.

Pricing is also an issue, a prescription (no specifics) I used back in 1990 cost $600 for a one month supply. Just out of curiosity I checked a few weeks ago what it would cost now that it is off patent; $4. There is plenty of room for cutting before getting to reductions of services.

WRT pay roll accounts; if a few small businesses get burned I doubt any help would be offered but any threat to the system would attempt to be bailed. The economy is simply too weak to add another source of business bankruptcies and job losses. If necessary the $100G limit will be superseded and it would be the right thing to do. There is no practical way for a small or medium business to split up its payroll among several banks and there is no moral hazard motivating factor that needs to be discouraged.

Seems reasonable, I just keep wondering why the government needs to arrange the marriages?

Is it one of those things that sometimes cooperation only happens at the point of a gun?

Or is it one of those things that the investors figure it is better to play 'sucidal' (god only knows the number of people who engage in 'parasuide' daily in order to get something thru their manipulative behavior... go to ANY psych ED in America on any day of the week at any time and you will literally see the stretchers line up with these fakers) if they wait for the fed, they will at least get a few cents on the dollar while if they do nothing they will probably get nothing.

1st tirade:Someone posted on another blog that the treasury printing debt bypasses Congressional budget approval. So Jeckyll trying to keep the checkbook in order is a joke because Hyde has gone insane with the credit cards. And in the end this is essentially taxation without representation.

2nd tirade:"Useless eaters" and "Are you sure you want to 'go it alone'"Our current culture is infected with some pretty virulent memes (probably started in America and now spread globally; overpopulation is both a byproduct and a fuel in the positive feedback loop). I want to hide while the disease burns itself out.

Yoyomo, the issue is WAY bigger than 'designer' drugs; the choices are WAY tougher.

It is the same issue your article suggested the Israelis face... You and I will have to face in our ill loved ones-- and even ourselves.

Personally, if I were czar I would do what the NHS did in the UK and create a US equivalent of NICE. Its executive leadership would be selected by the President (like Supreme Court Justices are) with the advice and consent of congress.

I would then let congress decide the absolute total amount it is willing to spend on healthcare but then push all decisions on 'how' that money is spent to our own NICE... I have always nodded my stethescope in honor of Britians ability to get enough social cooperation together to accomplish this feat. Truly remarkable.

We would also need to be on the lookout to prevent 'immoral' actions like this. Extremeists are always hijacking social institutions for their own purposes.

Just a thought. In order to make up for all the bad investments that the Treasury is making for the US taxpayer, perhaps it would be wise for the Bush administration to look into taking over some of the profitable US companies in order to make up for the losses. How about Haliburton and Exxon for starters...? Perhaps a few of the Pharmas and Ags...?

Thai, The problem presented in Jeff Halper's article is much simpler than health care rationing. The majority of Israeli Jews want to maintain a two-tier citizenship system for Jews/Gentiles. If mentioning these policies makes one anti-semitic, is enacting those policies pro-semitic? and if the water in the lake is refreshing, are the pro-semites prohibited from jumping in because it's not segregated?

Just out of curiosity, do you think that Jews, where they constitute small minorities, would support two-tier citizenships for J/G? I strongly suggest you take the trouble of reading Israel Shahak's book before throwing around labels and suggesting aquatic recreational activities. You might even find out that there are some things you don't know.

WRT medical rationing, 1st the 20-30% savings from compliance w/insurance could be redirected to care, 2nd prices would be negotiated, then the harder decisions regarding triage would have to be confronted. The article you linked to is tricky, there is sound logic on both sides but where would you draw the line? Would you prevent the use of nutritional supplements because not all patients can afford them?

I suspect the real reason is a desire to hurry up the dying process and save money for the NHS. Insurance companies in the US back in the 80's had the same policy toward HIV patients, they would refuse to cover their hospitalization costs if they were using any experimental treatments out of their own pocket. It was an obvious policy to get sick patients to die on schedule. Right or wrong, that was what it was.

Anyone that wants to set up a national identity based on either ethnicity or religion is making a mistake they will seriously regret one day... Having said this, I do understand the other side of this sword's edge: that diversity can also destroy social trust.

yoyomo- if you have to chose only 1, which is more compassionate: A society that spends its resources three months before someone dies or thirty years before they die? Because you are correct, this is the basic choice.

Now what would that society do if it had a predicitve models that are only 80% accurate at predicting who will live and who will die? Should it listen to those models?What does it do???

Right now in the US we DO NOT accept 80% accuracy rate--in the medical community, the language we use is "sensitivity", "specificity" and "number of patients needed to treat". They are simply considered immoral.

In the UK, 80% might well be fine IF one adds age or other illnesses into the model.

Translated: instead of putting our money into (say) smaller classroom sizes or better public health measures or safer roads, or even any other way we could spend our money to help people, etc... we spend it trying to save those near the end of their life because we can't predict who those 20% will be.

The NHS in the UK created NICE to solve this moral dilemma-- they simply look at the numbers and says "sorry, the data shows life it better served using the funds differently"-- they then make the tough calls.

Remember, healthcare spending is fractal- 1% spend 25% of the money and 5% use 50%. So rationing on just 1 in 20 people means that 19 out of 20 get the same care at a 1/2 the cost. But while it is simple math, it is NOT a simple moral issue at all-- I have had to stop CPR on people so many times I lost count long ago. And while it gets a little easier with time and numbers, it only gets a little easier.

Oh, and yoyomo: the 35% on insurance number is commonly quoted but is simply not correct.

I have no problem with a single payor system but the US spends $465/person on healthcare administrative-insurance costs.

While this was is more in both absolute and % terms than any other nation on earth (OECD median of $66/person and 2.5% of healthcare spending)except Luxembourg, yet it is is still only 7.6% of all healthcare spending.

Go after insurance all you want. But don't kid yourself. If we move to the OECD median, it would still only make a 5% difference AT MOST.

And Pharamceutical spending in the US as a % of all healthcare spending is WAY below the OECD average (page 32). Now I admit this is a bit misleading because our spending is SO MUCH GREATER than the OECD average, and it is definitely trust we like designer drugs in the US so our spending would be lower if we did not use them. But I think again you are going to get nearly as much savings from drugs as you think.

The big issue is 1% spend 25%, plane and simple.

The other issues are small potatoes in comparison-- good points and worth exploring-- but still small potatoes.

The truth is much tougher than we seem capable having in a national dialogue.

thaiIt looks like the Lackawanna Six had one of their relatives wacked. Might have been a coincidence, or it might have been Al-Queda punishing the Lackawanna Six for being insufficiently suicidal and committing terrorist acts in America.

I thought the article was about allowing people to use their own resources to supplement what the NHS could afford to provide. If the treatment is ineffective they aren't wasting any taxpayer funds. Whatever provision constraints exist would remain in effect as for a patient not using supplementals.

I don't think their concern is the ones who waste their own money killing themselves, it is the ones who spend their savings and live a few years more than everyone else with a simiilar disease who either did not save or are not rich.

Of course preventing patients from finding better therapies they can afford is actually against the highest ethical law we take as physicians: "first do no harm".

So in one bizarre moment a warped liberal ideology of a few extremists in the NHS has hijacked a model of medicine that has withstood millenia-- how is that for evolution in action?

If the English do not fix this flaw in their system IMHO it will ultimately corrupt their entire system over time (like those who want to add means testing to medicare and social security). For why would those who pay the most into the system 'buy in' to a system that rejects them from trying to further bnenefit 'within the rules of law' from the fruits of their labor?

As long as the patients are spending out-of-pocket (no debt) on their supplemental care they should be allowed to do it. People generally don't make stupid decisions when they are the ones who are paying for them. Finally, the taboo against suicide needs to rationalized. For some people death would be less scary if they could control it when they were ready for it.

ATTENTION, AMERICAN PEOPLE! YOUR GOVERNMENT, IN THRALL TO THE PLUTOCRATS OF WALL STREET, IS ABOUT TO BAIL OUT WHAT IS LEFT OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY AND, WHO KNOWS WHO ELSE. YOU ARE GOING TO PAY IN WAYS YOU NEVER DREAMT OF IN YOUR WILDEST NIGHTMARES.

IF YOU DON'T TAKE DRACONIAN ACTION NOW, HERE IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN:

THE U.S. BOND MARKET, THE PLACE WHERE THE GOVERNMENT RAISES ESSENTIAL FUNDS TO PAY FOR THE DAY TO RUNNING OF GOVERNMENT WILL BE DECIMATED. WHY? HOW?

LET'S START WITH...

1.) YOU THE TAXPAYER, HAVING VERY LITTLE WHEREWITHAL. WILL, GOING FORWARD, PROVIDE SHRINKING TAX RECEIPTS TO THE GOVERNMENT.

2.) FOREIGNERS, SENSING THE PARLOUS CONDITION OF OUR NATIONAL COFFERS, OVERBURDENED AS THEY WILL SHORTLY BE WITH NEW CRUSHING OBLIGATIONS, (AND NOT LIKING US ANYWAY) WILL CEASE TO PONY UP AT THE BORROWING TABLE

2.) THIS WILL NECESSITATE MASSIVE MONETIZING-PRINTING MONEY- BY THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR ALL THAT THEY HAVE NO FUNDS TO PAY WITH. THIS WILL LEAD TO HYPER-INFLATION. IN THIS ENVIRONMENT, BONDS CAN NOT BE PROPERLY PRICED, AND THAT SPELLS AN END TO THE CREDIT MARKETS. ON THAT DAY WE ARE A FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC BACKWATER AND IT IS....

About Me

I was educated as a chemical engineer but spent almost my entire career in finance, particularly in money, FX and bond markets. The name stands for Hell-as-IOUs and the picture points to Quixotic endeavors.